In 1947 six flying saucers circled above a harbor boat in Puget Sound near Tacoma, Washington, one wobbling and spewing slag. The falling junk killed a dog and burned a boy's arm. His father, Harold Dahl, witnessed it all and brought his partner, Fred Crisman, down the next day to see yet another UFO. The Maury Island incident became the first UFO event of the

Overview

In 1947 six flying saucers circled above a harbor boat in Puget Sound near Tacoma, Washington, one wobbling and spewing slag. The falling junk killed a dog and burned a boy's arm. His father, Harold Dahl, witnessed it all and brought his partner, Fred Crisman, down the next day to see yet another UFO. The Maury Island incident became the first UFO event of the modern era.

In 1968 New Orleans district attorney Jim Garrison subpoenaed Fred Crisman as part of his investigation into the JFK assassination, which became the subject of Oliver Stone's 1992 movie JFK. Garrison believed that Crisman was the infamous grassy knoll shooter. He's also the central figure in the "Mystery Tramp" photo of the Dallas rail yard hobos.

Illustrated with rare images, JFK & UFO interconnects the lingering mysteries of America's most notorious assassination and its weird ufological subculture. It examines the denizens of the bizarre, semi-spook underground reflecting a stranger and more true history than offered by the mainstream.

Kenn Thomas works as a conspiracy investigator, university library archivist, and editor and publisher of the conspiracy magazine Steamshovel Press. For Feral House he has written The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro, which helped expose the Inslaw scandal of the Reagan years. Thomas also co-edited (with Adam Parfrey) Secret and Suppressed II: Banned Ideas and Hidden History into the 21st Century.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

Thomas' latest book attempts to link theories about JFK's assassination and UFO sightings in the United States. For Thomas, the pivotal figure is Fred Crisman, who was supposedly involved in one of the earliest UFO sightings at Maury Island, and one of the men suspected of being a gunman on the grassy knoll during Kennedy's assassination. Unfortunately, the result reads like a raving subway lunatic with documentation. Thomas' connections don't seem to make any sense, and readers will be equally hard-pressed to follow the theory from beginning to end, since they will struggle to keep track of the complex list of characters involved and will likely respond to Thomas' earnest endeavor with skepticism. The layout is also confusing, with side notes competing for attention with the main text. (July)